The firestorm of controversy that has raged in American news media since the Secret Service discovered -- adding insult to injury, via Facebook -- that Tareq and Michaele Salahi had gatecrashed President Obama's November 24th state dinner almost made it seem like the the attention-seeking couple were the first interlopers ever to breach White House security. 

Not so, according to a report this week in the Washington Post. On Monday, the paper revealed having in its possession a summary of a Secret Service training document listing no fewer than 91 breaches of Presidential security between 1980 and 2003 alone, including a person masquerading as a deliveryman, a woman who was a known security risk, and, incredibly, an entire family in a minivan all being mistakenly allowed onto White House grounds.

The Secret Service says it finds the Salahi incident embarrassing and vows it won't happen again. But if the figures in the Washington Post are correct, between 1980 and 2003 Presidential security was breached, either at the White House or at a remote location, on average once every 90 days. 

One could rightly argue that, given so many previous security incursions without harm coming to the President, other Administration members, or the First Family, that the Salahis attempting--and managing--to meet President Obama in order to improve their chances of breaking into reality TV isn't that big a deal.

However, given the Post's eye-opening revelations, the real story is that for a full two weeks major American media assumed that the Salahi incident was an isolated one. Why? That's how the Secret Service and the Administration framed the incident in their collective response to it. And almost without question, that's how the news media portrayed it. I don't know if laying aside journalistic skepticism like that makes the White House Press Corps gullible, lazy, or merely inadvisably agreeable. But maybe they're the ones who should really be embarrassed.

[Image: House Budget Committee.]